


Don't put your life in someone's hands (they're bound to steal it away)

by Elisexyz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 05:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14277822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: Jemma may not trust Ward’s integrity anymore, but she sure as hell trusts that he’ll do a thorough job at keeping himself alive. Therefore, letting him precede her and indulging his knight in shining armour fantasy by hiding behind him is well worth the blow to her pride.





	Don't put your life in someone's hands (they're bound to steal it away)

**Author's Note:**

> For a Tumblr prompt ~~coming in so late it's embarassing~~ : [“You’re so clumsy… come here.” + “Put your seatbelt on.” + “Stop talking or we’ll be found.” + Biopecialist](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/172800668114/i-feel-so-so-so-guilty-for-asking-for-another). I've tempered a bit with all three of them, but... close enough...

“This wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so _clumsy_ ,” Jemma hisses, as Ward casually pushes her back with one arm and takes a peek behind the corner to make sure that the hallway is clear.

“It’s not my fault if that— _thing_ — is so stupidly delicate,” he snaps, proceeding with his gun up as soon as he’s positive that it’s safe to do so. Jemma follows without question: she may not trust Ward’s integrity anymore, but she sure as hell trusts that he’ll do a thorough job at keeping himself alive. Therefore, letting him precede her and indulging his knight in shining armour fantasy by hiding behind him is well worth the blow to her pride. “Shit happens in the field, you can’t expect me to—”

“Avoid _sitting_ on the ‘thing’? Which, for your information, is a very complicated device that took _months_ —”

“I couldn’t avoid that fall, Simmons,” he cuts her off, before she can get into more detail about the inhumane amount of effort that it took to find a way to exploit the pieces of the Monolith while being sure to have more or less complete control over it.

“You are supposed to be a _specialist_ , and you are telling me you can’t make sure that you are landing on the right side?” she snaps, annoyed. She can feel the weight of the broken pieces of the Space Remote – Fitz called dibs on the name of their latest accomplishment before she could stop him, and Ward has been giving his full support, mostly to piss her off; it’s too late to change it now – in her pocket, and it’s doing nothing to improve her mood.

All that work, and now she’s stuck on a strange planet, literally _years_ away from the rest of her team, and her only company is _Grant Ward_. Just because he fell on the only thing that can bring them back on Earth.

“ _Not_ if I am fighting off six armed soldiers, I cannot,” he replies, distractedly, pushing her back with one hand to make sure that she doesn’t expose herself. At first, working with him and seeing how easy it seemed to be for him to just get back to his role of protector, as if nothing had changed at all, was a special kind of torture. Now, though, they’ve been on enough missions together that she’s beginning to get used to it, and what used to be nausea inducing rage at his mere pretence became dull nostalgia twisting her stomach.

It helps that whenever he opens his mouth he reminds her of how different he is from his cover.

She snorts. “I’ve seen you pull more complicated stunts,” she comments, realizing her mistake only when he chuckles.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he announces, and she gets a peek at his amused grin before he starts walking again.

“You don’t deserve any compliments after this disaster,” she remarks. “We are stuck here, _together_ , years from our team—”

“Simmons,” he sighs, and he has the audacity of looking _annoyed_. That’s insulting, _she_ is the one who is stuck with _him_. “Stop talking, before someone finds us.”

Alright, he kind of has a point. They are clearing the corridors one by one as they try to get to the third floor, where they are supposed to be keeping the jets, so that they can try and steal one to get to the rendezvous point – where the team will come to collect them using another Space Remote, as soon as they realize that they are not coming back on their own, which will hopefully be soon.

Still, Jemma highly doubts that her hissing at Ward is going to alert them anymore than them walking.

Nevertheless, she stays silent the rest of the way, following his lead, stepping aside with her gun raised as he takes care of the soldiers they encounter on the way: Coulson’s _no unnecessary killing_ rule probably slows him down a bit, but he’s still effective enough that they make it to the third floor without Jemma having to attack anyone.

She’s asked to keep watch as he chooses a ship that he’s confident he can pilot without too much trouble. Actually, it’s more of an _order_ than a request, but thinking of it as such makes her want to slap him in the face, which would be counterproductive considering that this is his area of expertise, she’s not the one who’ll have to fly them out and it’s only reasonable of him to want to call the shots right now.

“If someone comes through that door, shoot them in the face,” Ward adds, casually, taking a quick look at the place, probably to see if there’s a model he can recognize.

“No unnecessary killings, remember?” she replies. Not that she would go on a killing spree even in absence of that rule.

“That’s for _me_ ,” he points out, glancing at her with an hint of amusement. “You, on the other hand, _can_ shoot them in the face.”

She throws her best unimpressed glare at him, before turning towards the door as she says: “I won’t. There’s a reason why you are the only one on probation here.”

“As you wish— aim at the kneecaps, but fair warning, they’ll go for the head,” he replies, and she hears him walking away.

Jemma inhales sharply, trying not to dwell too much on how his cover wouldn’t have wanted her on the line of fire not matter what, how he would have told her to hide in some remote corner of the room as he inspected the jets without anyone to watch the entrance – listing the differences between the real Ward and the version of him she once loved is good, as long as she doesn’t let grief swallow her whole.

But, to be fair, back then she wouldn’t have even known how to grip a gun, let alone shoot it.

Ward does his job in silence, and Jemma tries to keep herself calm and ready to spring into action by counting the minutes. She loses count at five and twenty-three seconds, distracted by a flicker of light that she mistook for a signal that someone was coming.

Toning down her frantic heartrate after that is a challenge, and when Ward finally calls for her she’s still on edge. Of course, being a giant pain in her ass, he immediately notices.

“Something wrong?” he asks, frowning in what looks like genuine concern. He throws a look at the door, his hand reflexively moving towards his gun, but there’s nothing to be seen.

“No,” she replies, dismissively. “I’m just very unhappy with our current situation,” she elaborates, because even if they’d better not waste any time while they are still in the lion’s dent, he might bring it up again once they are in the air. And then she’ll be way too nervous to dodge his questions – there was a time when his mere presence would reduce drastically her fear of falling out of the plane, and sometimes, when she’s not busy dreaming of a claustrophobic pod and the ocean swallowing her whole, Fitz’s weight dragging her down and spurring her to push her muscles to their limit to save them both, she still feels his arms stopping her free fall, she still hears him whispering reassurances and promising: _I’ll catch you if you fall_.

“Alright,” he says, after a few moments of evaluation. He seems to believe her to some degree, and not for the first time Jemma is very thankful for the practice in the art of half-truths that her time undercover provided. “After you, then,” he adds, gesturing playfully in the direction of their ride.

“You know how to pilot this?” she asks, sceptically, looking around to see that it’s fairly similar to a Quinjet, if a bit larger.

He shrugs, following her as she heads for the seat next to the pilot. “The commands remind me of a Quinjet. But we’ll find out soon enough,” he adds, throwing a grin her way as if he wasn’t discussing the possibility of their imminent death. As if she wasn’t terrified of this sort of thing. Bastard.

She clenches her teeth as he turns on the engine, and of course there are shouts now and gunshots, because they couldn’t have waited five more minutes to find them, right? She doesn’t understand what they are saying, she doesn’t even know _what_ _language_ they speak, but she assumes that they are ordering them to surrender, threatening to blow them out of the sky—

“You’d better put on your seatbelt,” Ward points out. There’s still a playful edge in his voice and a grin on his face. Jemma would probably smack him if she wasn’t busy reaching for her belt and holding tight onto it as soon as it’s strapped. By then, they are already taking off.

“I _hate_ you,” she lets out, and she doesn’t know if she _sounds_ like she’s about to start crying in horror, or she’s just aware that she is about to reach that point.

“Come on, I’m a skilled pilot,” Ward protests. It’s still light, but less teasing. That’s something. “Just trust me,” he adds, this time serious. Jemma glances his way and finds out that he’s looking straight ahead, concentrated on his task and looking so much like his old – fake – self that it’s not that difficult to trick herself into relaxing slightly.

That is, until she realizes that he has no idea how to get out of there and he’s heading for the large _glass_ that stands in place of a wall, like a giant window.

“Ward—” she calls, her eyes fixed on the glass, that gets closer by the second. He doesn’t seem to have any intention of slowing down, and she doesn’t even know what she’s trying to imply with that single word.

“Trust me,” he repeats, as if that meant _anything_ at this point.

She thought she could trust him to get himself out of there alive, but she should have realized that alive doesn’t mean _whole_ and that Ward has never been particularly scared of ending up in a hospital bed. _Jemma_ , on the other hand, is trembling all over the place, her hands gripping the seatbelt so tightly that she’s pretty sure her knuckles are about to tear through her skin, and as they hit the glass she shuts her eyes, her mind going blank as the utmost, terrifying certainty that she’s about to die horribly swallows her whole.

Then the seconds pass and Ward lets out a victorious chuckle. She slowly opens her eyes, registering that her heart is still beating – way too insistently – and that nothing hurts. They are still flying and Ward has turned towards her, a smug grin on his face.

“Told you,” he comments, and it’s way too soft to come across as teasing.

She takes a deep breath, nodding briefly as she forces herself to ease the grip on her seatbelt – she’s _not_ letting go, not until her feet are on the ground again – and she straightens a bit on her seat, pushing back all the tears of fear and relief that are building up behind her eyes.

“If we get out of this alive,” she says, slowly, her voice steadier than she would have guessed. “I’m having words with Coulson about your probation. You should be in a mental hospital.”

He snorts, amused. “If the job was easy, it wouldn’t be any fun,” he preaches, lightly, not at all offended by her insult. Maybe because, for the first time in a while, it wasn’t said with any contempt at all.


End file.
